The Albina Ministerial Coalition for Justice and Police Reform will hold a memorial vigil for Kendra James, the 21-year-old woman fatally shot and killed by a Portland police officer 10 years ago as she tried to drive from a traffic stop on the North Skidmore Street I-5 overpass.

The memorial will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday outside the Greater Faith Baptist Church, at 931 N. Skidmore, just yards from where the shooting occurred.

"James' death was a touchstone for many in Portland who saw the shooting of an unarmed African American woman as a symptom of a Police Bureau needing major reforms," according to a news release issued by the coalition and Portland Copwatch. "In many ways her death led the accountability efforts down the path to the changes now being sought as a remedy by the Department of Justice in their lawsuit against the City."

Officer Scott McCollister fatally shot James, 21, on May 5, 2003, as she tried to drive away from a traffic stop on North Skidmore Street. The officer told investigators that 80 percent of his body was in the car, trying to get her out, when she put the car into drive. He testified that he fired one shot from his 9 mm handgun because he feared for his life.

Although former Chief Mark Kroeker said McCollister's use of deadly force to protect himself didn't violate bureau policy or state law, he said McCollister should not have put himself in the car and in a position in which he had to unholster and fire his gun.

Kroeker's six-page disciplinary letter criticized McCollister's lack of tactical planning in deciding how to get James out of the car and described how it led to the fatal shooting.

An arbitrator, though, overturned the Portland Police Bureau's 5 1/2-month suspension of McCollister for his tactics leading up to the shooting. The arbitrator ordered the city to pay McCollister's lost wages and expunge the suspension from McCollister's record.The key reason: The Portland Police Bureau never conducted a full internal affairs investigation as required by bureau policy in deadly force cases.

The Albina Ministerial coalition is now involved in mediation talks with federal prosecutors, Portland city attorneys and the police union to come to an agreement on the reforms required to address a scathing U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found Portland police use excessive force against people with mental illness.